The Art of Creativity: 7 Tips to becoming creative

written by
Okeoma Samuel C
6/2/2018

Introduction

While growing up, I had this notion about creativity; I thought of creativity as an inheritance to the ‘talented’.

Therefore, this meant that anything that I could not do well while growing up was because I had no talent as regards it. To me, I thought that talent was inherited.

I never attempted my drawing assignments because the few times I tried, I was laughed to scorn.

I chose the things I tried out based on the traits I ‘thought ‘ I inherited from my parents. For instance, I loved music because my dad loved music and was a choirmaster. I loved playing table tennis because that is one sport I can remember my father (God rest his soul) loved as a spare time sport.

Over the years, I have found out that being creative is not an inheritance.

Creativity is Trainable, not just a born talent

Creativity is not something you are born with. It can be harnessed. If you put your mind to it, with practice, you’ll become creative.

Hence, I share these secrets with you. Feel free to check them out.

What is Creativity?

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.

Definition of Creativity – ayfNig

Being Creative is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.

Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.

Becoming Creative: How to develop creative ideas and skills

1. Embrace Openness:

If you must harness creative ideas that will revolutionize you, you must embrace ‘openness’.

It has to do with how much you are motivated to considering new ideas and concepts. Most youths are already laying on their death beds. Why? They already think like our 19th century parents who found it very difficult to embrace change.

The most creative people are very open people. If you are someone who resists new ideas, it means that you’ll rarely be able to become creative.

The most creative people do not settle on a single way to think about a problem. If you must become creative, you must find new descriptions of a particular problem and allow your memory to find more information that might help to solve it.

The more different questions you ask, the more creative ideas you’ll have.

Creativity is not Magic, Creativity is for everyone..

2. Create the Right Environment

The truth is that every single individual (yes, even you) can be creative. You simply require the right environment, stimulus, and support.

If you must become creative, provide yourself with an environment where you can feel relaxed and comfortable with vocalizing your ideas. Create a safe space where unusual ideas can be celebrated and where creativity can be nurtured.

3. Don’t be afraid of failing: Quit giving excuses

A study from the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Social Psychology showed that when people are faced with constraints it forces them to step back, look at the big picture, and make connections between things they normally wouldn’t—an ability called ‘global processing’, which is a hallmark of creativity.

If you must become creative, you must be willing to take risks. Not all creative ventures will eventually work out, but eventually, some will. Some of the individuals that ended up with innovative inventions failed severally. Albert Einstein is one man that we should always look up to. He saw failure as ‘Success in Progress’.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything”. He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

It is clear that you don’t have any excuse for failure.

Great success is built on failure, frustration and even catastrophe – Sumner Redstone

If you can overcome the fear of failing, you’ll be able to become open minded enough to seek solutions to your problems.

4. Never stop Learning – Learn something new everyday

Many websites offer free and paid MOOCs that can help you in learning skills in almost any vocation under the sun. Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, edX, are some sites that you can check up.

How about learning a new language, picking up a new instrument, or taking a cooking class; The internet is your friend.

5. Copy Success :

Be willing to steal from others who have become successful in your niche without apology. Find out what they do that makes them successful and start doing those things too.

The young Steve Jobs stole the idea for the computer mouse and drop-down menus from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre.

So, steal smart.

When you steal, focus on specifics, not general impressions. Capture concrete facts: the angle of a golfer’s left elbow at the top of the back swing; the curve of a surgeon’s wrist; the exact length of time a comedian pauses before delivering the punchline. Ask yourself: what, exactly, are the critical moves here? How do they perform those moves differently than I do?

6. Don’t give up – Practice, Practice & Practice:

It’s easy to hide your work away because you think you’re not good enough. It’s even easier to put off creating because ‘you’re not a creative person’, or ‘you’re just not feeling inspired’. But the truth of it is that, like anything in life, creativity is something that needs to be fostered and strengthened through practice.

7. Hard skills vs Soft skills- Focus on the hard skills: Spend time on them

Every skill falls into one of two categories: hard skills and soft skills.

Hard Skills:

Hard, high-precision skills are actions that are performed as correctly and consistently as possible, every time.

Soft skills are found in specialised pursuits – such as a tennis player serving, or any precise, repeating athletic move. Here, your goal is to build a skill that functions like a Swiss watch – reliable, exact, and performed the same way every time, automatically, without fail.

Soft Skills:

Soft, high-flexibility skills, on the other hand, are those that have many paths to a good result, not just one. These skills aren’t about doing the same thing perfectly every time, but rather about being agile and interactive; about instantly recognising patterns as they unfold and making smart, timely choices.

Soft skills tend to be found in broader, less-specialized pursuits, especially those that involve communication, such as: a football player sensing a weakness in the Defence and deciding to attack; a stock trader spotting a hidden opportunity; a novelist instinctively shaping the twists of a complicated plot.

With these skills, we are not trying for Swiss-watch precision, but rather for the ability to quickly recognise a pattern or possibility, and to work past a complex set of obstacles.

Most talents are not exclusively hard skills or soft skills (see above), but rather a combination of the two. The point of this tip is simple: prioritise the hard skills because in the long run they’re more important to your talent.

You might be surprised to learn that many top performers place great importance on practicing the same skills they practiced as beginners. These performers don’t say to themselves, “Hey, I’m one of the most talented people in the world – shouldn’t I be doing something more challenging?”. They work on the task of honing and maintaining their hard skills, because those form – quite literally – the foundation of everything else.

Conclusion

In summary, studies have shown that creativity, while influenced by your family, is a skill we all inherently have, and one that can be fostered, grown, and taught.

Creativity is a skill that can be developed and a process that can be managed.

Small actions repeated over time would transform you. You can become creative.

Creativity comes in small steps. It’s not something that happens instantaneously. Saying it’s something you’re born with negates all of the hard work, effort, and time that goes into creating anything of value.

The more you make creativity part of your daily life, the more it will grow.

It’s easy to hide your work away because you think you’re not good enough. It’s even easier to put off creating because ‘you’re not a creative person’, or ‘you’re just not feeling inspired’. But the truth of it is that, like anything in life, creativity is something that needs to be fostered and strengthened through practice.

I’ll end by asking you to ask yourself this question, ‘am I creative?’